friend requests in fb

reflection and question of the day for me - why do you add me if you do not post status updates in your fb? this question was post to me by an (old) friend whom i had reconnected recently and whom i had added in facebook. he accepted my friend request but saw nothing in my facebook status updates. pre-empting questions from him, i told him to expect to see nothing in my status updates and that was when he asked me the question. i suspected he also felt cheated by this imbalance in information sharing for after all, we access people's facebook to read their status updates and to get a glimpse into their lives. that was how i framed his reaction when he asked me the question above.  

but his question set me thinking...

of cos, my initial response to him was - so that i can keep in touch with him, but thinking further, i could think of a few reasons and these include (1) i could stalk him, haha... no la, i meant, so that i could be posted about things that happen in his life, or (2) so that i can have a repository of friends. 

frankly, for the first, it was not really the main reason cos i do not have the habit of checking out people's postings. i did that for my previous attempts in facebook but found it to be rather stressful and sometimes very disappointing. it was so difficult and stressful to be blasted daily with views that differ so significantly from mine. and i end up feeling very disappointed with my friends. i guess we have this hidden desire for our friends to share our same thoughts. no? the second reason was probably why i chose to add friends despite not using facebook the "conventional way", and that is - to have a repository of friends. a repository that allow me to keep in touch as and when i want to. not much different from having a phonebook in that sense. haha...

well, since i am talking about fb and friends, i do also want to add that i do not request for friends unless i feel there is a certain level of connection. and on the same token, i do not accept requests readily. i do so only for people whom i have the desire to add. 

:-)